Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.’s $1.05 billion damages
award against Samsung Electronics Co. from its patent-infringement trial in San Jose, California, was left intact
after a judge denied Apple’s bid to increase the award.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose yesterday declined
to increase the award after she found Samsung’s infringement
wasn’t willful. The ruling was one of many post-trial decisions
Koh issued yesterday denying both companies’ bids for a new
trial and leaving largely untouched the jury’s finding in August
that Samsung infringed six mobile-device patents.

“The court will not speculate as to how, precisely, the
jury calculated its damages award,” Koh wrote in her ruling. It
is “reasonable to assume” that the award is “intended to
compensate Apple for losses stemming from all of the violations
the jury found.”

Jurors decided Aug. 24 at the end of a trial that Samsung
should pay the $1.05 billion for infringing the six Apple
patents. Apple, which lost its bid to block U.S. sales on 26 of
the Galaxy maker’s devices, failed to establish that consumer
demand for Samsung products was driven by technology it stole,
Koh ruled earlier.

Koh rejected Apple’s argument that jurors erred by finding
Apple’s trade dress, or how a product looks, for the iPad and
iPad 2 wasn’t protectable. The judge also denied Apple’s request
that she overrule jurors’ conclusion that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab
10.1 didn’t infringe one patent covering the design of Apple’s
iPad tablet computer. She found that two claims, or elements, of
Samsung’s patent covering data transmission over wireless
systems were invalid.

Samsung Loss

The judge also denied Samsung’s request for a new trial.
Samsung spokesman Adam Yates declined to comment on any of Koh’s
rulings, including whether the Suwon, South Korea-based company
would attempt to make any new arguments based on the ruling that
the infringement wasn’t intentional.

Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, also declined to comment on the rulings.

Koh also rejected Samsung’s argument that Apple’s patents
may be “indefinite,” meaning that its claims, or elements,
aren’t particular enough in describing the technology they
covers.

Samsung rose 2.2 percent today in Seoul. Apple fell as much
as 0.7 percent in trading in New York before rising as much as 1
percent to $462.60.

‘Slavishly Copying’

Samsung and Apple, which together make about half of the
smartphones sold worldwide, have each scored victories in their
patent disputes fought over four continents since Apple accused
Asia’s biggest electronics maker of “slavishly copying” its
devices. The companies are competing for dominance of a global
mobile-device market estimated by Yankee Group at $346 billion
this year.

At a Dec. 6 hearing, Koh had said that the original award
“is not authorized by the law” on some of the products at
issue, and that the jury’s method for calculating damages was
potentially flawed.

“If there is enough evidence in the record to justify that
damage award then that verdict should be upheld,’ Harold
McElhinny, a lawyer for Apple, argued to the judge.

Kathleen Sullivan, a lawyer for Samsung, contended at the
hearing that the damages should be reduced by more than $600
million. Sullivan said that while the jury’s calculations were
precise, the nine-member panel was hampered by a verdict form
that, against Samsung’s wishes, wasn’t ‘‘particularized” enough
to permit jurors to properly arrive at damages on a product-by-product basis.

Reverse Engineer

“You should reverse engineer” to make sure the damages
are “causally connected to the evidence,” Sullivan told the
judge.

The patent disputes began when Samsung released its Galaxy
smartphones in 2010. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died Oct.
5, 2011, initiated contact with Samsung over his concerns that
the Galaxy phones copied the iPhone, according to testimony from
the trial in August.

Jobs later vowed to wage “thermonuclear war” to prove
that phones running on Google Inc.’s Android operating system
copy the iPhone. Samsung devices use Android.

Apple’s 2011 suit claimed Samsung products infringe four
design patents and three utility, or software, patents. While
finding infringement of six patents, the jury concluded that
Samsung didn’t infringe one patent covering the design of
Apple’s iPad tablet computer.

Apple argued Samsung bet that the benefits of using
intellectual property from the iPhone and iPad would outweigh
the money damages the jury awarded. Apple urged Koh to increase
the damages by $536 million and approve the sales ban because
Samsung took market share from Apple by “deliberately copying
the iPhone design,” according to a court filing.

Flooding Market

Apple, in court filings supporting a sales ban, claimed
that Samsung started flooding the U.S. market with infringing
products at the critical juncture when customers are moving to
smartphones and developing “platform loyalty” that has
diminished the base of iPhone users.

The iPhone maker has asked a full panel of judges at the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to
review two appeals seeking to block sales of Samsung products
that Apple says violate its patents.

A three-judge Federal Circuit panel said in October that
Samsung could continue selling its newest Galaxy Nexus
smartphone while battling patent-infringement claims by Apple.
To obtain an order that would block sales, Apple must show that
the patented search feature under dispute drives consumer demand
for the product, the panel said.

The San Jose case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co.
Ltd., 11-cv-01846, U.S. District Court, Northern District of
California (San Jose).